


Lay By My Side (And We'll Sail Away)

by DetectiveJoan



Category: Fablehaven Series - Brandon Mull
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, One Shot, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Canon, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 01:56:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7339861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DetectiveJoan/pseuds/DetectiveJoan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a scale from one to so-exhausted-that-she-could-literally-feel-the-dark-circles-forming-under-her-eyes, Kendra was at least a seven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lay By My Side (And We'll Sail Away)

**Author's Note:**

> will i ever write a fic for this fandom that has anything even vaguely resembling a plot?????
> 
> signs point to no.
> 
> ETA: i originally wrote and published this fic as specifically platonic, but an anon raised the concern that it could be read as polyamorous, in which case it would require **warnings for incest, underage, and ~10 yr age difference** , so if those are dynamics u need to avoid u may want to consider skipping this fic.

Kendra was tired. Actually, she was pretty sure she had fully surpassed simply being _tired_. On a scale from one to so-exhausted-that-she-could-literally-feel-the-dark-circles-forming-under-her-eyes, she was at least a seven.

Although she knew that everyone had had to deal with their share of nightmares after Zzyzx, hers had a tendency to disappear for weeks on end before re-emerging with a vengeance for several nights in a row. And in the nearly two weeks that had passed since the last solstice, she'd never managed to grab more than two or three hours of sleep before being woken by a bad dream. 

(Tonight, Warren had been in her dream -- which wasn’t always a given, but happened often enough -- and they’d been back on Lost Mesa, trapped in the storm and surrounded by dozens of ghastly mythical creatures. She’d recognized Warren through the pouring rain just in time to see him run through by a hurled spear. The tip of it tore into his chest and then blossomed out the middle of his back a split second later. Even from too-far-away she could see the blood stain appear around the wound as he collapsed to his knees.

“Warren!” She tried to run to him, but Gavin was in front of her, blocking her way.

“I told you it was dangerous up here,” he said. He flashed a grin, mouth full of teeth too big and too sharp to belong to anything other than a dragon. With a sudden ferocity, he shoved her backwards. She felt her feet lose their purchase on the edge of the Mesa, and then she was in the air -- thousands of feet above the ground, and falling quickly.)

She jolted awake before she hit the ground, gasping for air as though she’d been drowning. Heart thundering against her chest, she pushed herself into a sitting position, drew her leg up against her chest, and buried her face in her knees -- she was unsurprised to find herself crying.

A few moments later, she heard the stairs up to the attic creak; someone was coming to check up on her and Seth. Before going to bed, she’d drawn the curtains over the windows tightly enough to make it too dark for anyone but herself to see anything in the attic -- she didn’t need anyone thinking she couldn’t cope with something as trivial and insubstantial as a bad dream -- so she didn’t bother to lay back down now. All she needed to do to convince them that she was fine was to be quiet.

She pressed a hand over her mouth and held her breath as the door to the nursery was pushed open. Warren leaned in through the opening.

“Kendra?” he said, barely louder than a whisper. “You awake?”

She closed her eyes. The silence stretched between them for only a short moment before Warren spoke again.  

“That was a rhetorical question. Vanessa told me you were up.”

Kendra breathed deeply through her nose before uncovering her mouth and sighing, “The semi-creepy perks of dating a blix?”

“There are semi-creepier aspects, believe it or not,” he said, good-naturedly. “Come over here.”

She briefly considered denying the request. There was a pretty firm ban on adults entering the playroom, especially after dark, as it tampered with some of the safety spells in place, so if she stayed in bed she was fairly certain he wouldn’t come to her. But she quickly decided that being able to reassure herself he was alright was worth him finding out that she’d been crying.

Which he managed almost immediately. After she padded around Seth’s bed and met Warren on the landing at the top of the stairs outside the playroom, he gently reached up in the absolute darkness to brush her hair off her face. His fingers paused when he touched the tears she hadn’t quite managed to wipe away.

He frowned. Kendra ignored this in favor of preoccupying herself with the area just below his sternum where she could still visualizing a growing pool of blood. She brushed her fingertips against the spot, her dry skin catching on the ratty t-shirt he pretended passed as pajamas.

“Vanessa said you’ve been waking up like this all week,” he said, voice still incredibly quiet. He placed his hand over hers and laced their fingers together. “Nightmares?”

She made a noise of ascent, but didn’t elaborate.

For a second he looked like he was trying to decide something, and then he said, “Come sleep with me and Vanessa tonight.”

It was her turn to frown. She tried to pull her hand away, but Warren kept his grip firm.

“I don’t want to be any trouble,” she said. “I’m okay. I’ll just go back to bed.”

“Yeah, like you’re gonna sleep any more for the rest of the night,” he scoffed. “I know how nightmares work, Kendra.”

She did have to concede that point and, with it, the argument for solitude. And when it came right down to it, she thought, she’d spent more than enough hours that week staring blankly at the ceiling or the windows or Seth -- who seemed to have no problems sleeping through the night, the utter bastard -- while willing herself to fall back asleep.

She acquiesced and allowed him to guide her down the stairs, their hands still joined.

"So what is the semi-creepiest aspect?" she asked as they descended.

Warren muffled a yawn into the back of his free hand before answering.

"Of dating Vanessa?" he said. "Definitely the retractable fangs." 

This answer surprised Kendra enough to draw a short, startled laugh. One side of Warren's mouth tugged up in a hint of a smile and he squeezed her hand. "That's the sound I like to hear," he said, sounding almost proud. 

Between the main house, the old mansion, and the cabin, living spaces on the preserve sometimes felt like a very confusing game of musical chairs. Although Vanessa and Warren had spent most of the last several months in the cabin, they’d recently decided to move back into the sole bedroom on the bottom floor of the house, after Kendra's parents had vacated it to relocate to the old mansion. They'd taken over a room in turn left empty by Dale, who was spending the next three months working on a preserve in Florida. Kendra was grateful, suddenly, for all the switching around that left Warren and Vanessa in such close proximity. It took no time at all to stealthily reach their bedroom.

The door was open almost all the way. Even before they reached it, Kendra could see Vanessa under the covers, curled towards the open door and the half of the bed that Warren had left empty. Their curtains were drawn back, allowing a streak of moonlight to fall across the foot of the bed.

“Look what I found,” Warren said to Vanessa, pulling Kendra into the room and then softly closing the door. He pushed her towards the bed.

Vanessa replied without opening her eyes. “It’s kind of dark in here, but I don’t _think_ that looks like a stray puppy.” Her accent sounded heavier with sleep.

“Can we keep her?”

Vanessa turned to look up at Kendra, and smiled softly. “Of course,” she said.

Kendra crawled under the covers to the middle of the bed, lying on her side to face Vanessa. Their knees bumped against each other as Warren settled on his back on the edge of the bed. The older woman raised a hand to tuck Kendra’s hair behind her ear, a mirror of the gesture Warren had performed outside the playroom.

“Thanks for sending Warren to check on me,” Kendra said. “I’m sorry if I woke you up.”

Vanessa waved this away. “I’m connected to so many people, I rarely get a full night’s sleep,” she said. “You’re not the only person having nightmares tonight."

When she could tell this didn’t quite satisfy Kendra, she added, “Apologize for it by going back to sleep.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Kendra admitted.

Warren rolled onto his side behind Kendra, so his chest was pressed against her back, and threw his arm messily over hers. Already, the warmth of his close proximity was making her feel more comfortable than she had over the string of lonely nights in the attic.

“Well, _I’m_ going back to sleep,” he announced, voice muffled in a way that indicated his face was half-buried in the pillow.

Vanessa ignored him. “You can,” she said. “You’re tired enough for it. I can feel it.”

She tangled her fingers with Kendra’s over the covers. Her breathing quickly evened out to the slow rise and fall that let Kendra know she was already asleep.

Kendra closed her eyes and allowed herself to focus on the feeling of Warren’s heartbeat against her back and Vanessa’s soft breath against her cheek.

Even if she didn’t manage to sleep through the night, she reasoned, her situation had vastly improved.


End file.
